Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Yahoo! Inc. upgraded its e-mail
service to woo mobile users, the first major product unveiling
since Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer took over with a
mandate to improve tools and services to lure back customers.

The revamped e-mail service is designed to be faster and
easier to navigate on the Internet, smartphones and tablets, the
Sunnyvale, California-based company said today in a Web posting.

Mayer, a former Google Inc. executive, is seeking to
reverse three straight annual sales declines by updating widely
used products, including mail, the Yahoo Messenger chat service
and Yahoo’s home page. The efforts are poised to stoke
competition with her former employer, which has added millions
of users to Gmail as Yahoo Mail has stagnated.

“I don’t think this in itself will be what saves Yahoo,”
Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said in
an interview. “This looks like a nice feature set. It certainly
looks like it will be a cleaner experience for e-mail users.”

The shares rose less than 1 percent to $19.52 at the close
in New York. The stock has gained 21 percent this year.

Versions of the new e-mail will be available for devices
running software such as Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8, as well as
Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad and machines powered by Google
Inc.’s Android operating system.

“Because mobile is everything these days, Yahoo! Mail now
has a consistent look and feel across devices,” Mayer said on
the blog.

Yahoo products have failed to keep up with changes in
online habits, the CEO said on a call with analysts in October.

Internet communication is “primed to be re-imagined,”
Mayer said on the call. “There is great opportunity to
modernize Yahoo Mail and Messenger, especially given the
continual increase in the amount of communication we’re all
receiving.”

Comeback Strategy

The CEO has said she plans to invest in hiring engineers
with expertise in mobile applications, boosting the company’s
technology for buying and serving ads, and building services
that are more personalized for individual users.

Mayer kicked off her Yahoo comeback strategy by hiring
several senior deputies, including Henrique de Castro,
previously Google’s vice president of global partner business
solutions, as operating chief. Mayer promoted Adam Cahan,
founder of a social-TV startup acquired by the Web portal last
year, to lead mobile services at the company.

Yahoo’s U.S. e-mail user base slipped to 77.7 million
people in November, down from 92 million a year earlier,
according to market researcher ComScore Inc.